


The Diary

by velaria



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Budapest, Diary, F/F, F/M, Friendship, M/M, Natasha Feels, Not superheroes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, What Happened in Budapest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-20 07:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3642585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velaria/pseuds/velaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 2012, a top-secret organisation called SHIELD led a top-secret movement against an unclear opposition. The main weapons involved in winning this hushed war was known as 'The Avengers Initiative': five people, with extraordinary backgrounds and extraordinary skills, worked together under unbelievable pressure and took down the opposition in the space of one day.</p>
<p>Nobody knows who these quiet heroes are, or were. In fact, nobody knows about this war, or about the opposition, or about the fact that one night in 2012 their very existence was under threat, and that had it not been for some tremendous self-sacrifice, they would not be here today.</p>
<p>The way I know it is simply because I'm the daughter of two of those heroes. The truth is I knew remarkably little about both of them, and they never told me about the war. The way I found out was by use of a diary which I found when I was eighteen.</p>
<p>And this is it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. My Parents' House

Loss is incredibly, incredibly difficult to deal with. 

Nothing can truly prepare you for the loss of a loved one, nothing, and the younger you are, the more difficult it is. You never expect a death – whether they've been terminally ill for years or whether they dropped dead out of some random heart attack with warning, you're never ready.

And there are things you don't expect to have to deal with. Things like finding a funeral director, like finding clothes for them to wear in the coffin, like having to phone up your parents' friends who you've never spoken to and tell them, like...God, so many things. But the one I found most difficult was going through his things. Am I supposed to keep them? Sell them? Send them away, burn them, read them – but you can't read them, they're _his_ and they're private...oh my God, oh my God...

For me, that was the worst moment. That was when I realised that he was gone.

I'd gone up to my father's attic. In all my years of living, I was never allowed up there. I knew he had some records about my mother up there, and I knew he had some information about his time in the CIA. To be honest, I had no fucking clue what he even did for the CIA, only that he'd worked for them. I assumed it was an office job, I mean you don't tend to meet your wife when out on special forces mission. I guess I was wrong.

When I was young, I'd make up huge stories about what was up in the attic. Monster heads, I decided, from his glorious days as a knight long ago. When I was angry with him, I pretended it was where he hid my birth papers, because my  _real_ parents would never shout at me, my  _real_ parents were probably king and queen of somewhere. Once when I was seven I tried to go up there, but the fury in his eyes when he caught me prevented me from trying ever again. Whatever was up there was not for me to see.

Now he was dead and my mother had been for years, it was as if this magical forbidden forcefield around the attic room was gone. Its contents, I thought, both sadly and proudly, belonged to me now.

I had made the funeral arrangements. The body had been moved, the cause of death identified, and the death certificates signed. I had a week until the funeral, and nothing to do meanwhile. 

I walked up into the attic, and swung open the door, not sure what to expect. I think a part of me hoped my father would be there, asleep over his paperwork but alive as ever. Instead, I found an empty room with maplewood floors and white walls. It was nothing remarkable, just like all of the other rooms in our house, except this was clearly an office. Eerily unaffected, I sat at the table, but the chair was horribly uncomfortable and suddenly I felt sick being there, where he had sat and worked. 

Then I started to methodically go through the drawers. I put everything into its own pile – bills, bank statements, insurance information – although most of it had been organised well before. 

Why had this been forbidden for so long?

In the chest of drawers, I found photos. Of me, mainly, but also a few of my mother. Then I found expired passports. Natasha Romanoff, Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff Barton, Marina Barton, Clint Barton...but what was this?

_Natalia Romanova._

But the picture there was of my mother, and her name wasn't Natalia, nor was it Romanova. In fact, Romanova wasn't even a surname, was it? In Russia, it would be a middle name, I thought, a patronymic name. It was odd, but probably just an error, or maybe she changed her name or something.

And then I saw the diary. 

It wasn't particularly well-hidden, just nestled under a few documents in the last drawer. It looked and felt nothing like a historic journal to me. In fact, it was pretty much just a Moleskine notebook. I opened it to the first page.

_1st February 2011._

_I can't believe I'm explaining myself to a book, but Clint seems convinced it'll help, so I'm doing it. Besides, nobody has to know about this. We just got back from Budapest, and I had another...panic attack. This country's made me too soft. Before I came here, complaining of a 'panic attack' would be like telling your boss you're not coming to work because your knees are itchy._

_But Clint–––_

And then I shut it immediately, dropped it like it was a hot poker.  _Mommy_ , I thought.

That was when I started crying, for the first time since I found his body. I'm not talking normal crying like you see in films. I mean funeral crying. Howling, screaming at God or the angels or whoever the hell is listening to  _bring him back_ , shouting at them that you don't understand why they're gone. I don't know why that diary had such a huge effect on me, but either way it was so awful I called up Elly.

'Come on sweetie,' she said on the other side of the phone. 'Just breathe, honey. Breathe. There ya go, there ya go...do you want me to come over?' I actually opened my mouth to say yes, but then I remembered the diary. I swallowed, feeling a lump in my throat.

'Um, no. No thanks. I just, um – I want some time alone. Kinda like family time, except...'

'Don't you worry, I get it. I was just the same when my dad died.' I breathed in heavily. 'Listen, my door is open for you any time. You wanna come over, don't even call, just drive over.'

'Okay. Thanks Elly.' I hung up.

I picked up the diary, and shut the attic door behind me. Instead I sat down on my bed, where it was less intensely quiet. I can't say what possessed me to keep reading. But something did.

_But Clint says I'm being too harsh on myself, that I haven't left behind the Red Room mentality. He keeps insisting these attacks don't make me weak, that they're just a way I'm mentally trying to deal with trauma. But it's been years and I want to stop having to deal with them._

_The good news is that they're becoming less frequent. I get them maybe once every few months, even once a year. And then this one on the way home from Budapest happened, and...more than anything, it was embarrassing, being rushed off to a bathroom stall to be sick and then crying into his chest._

_I am opening up to a book. Come on, this is ridiculous._

_But if it'll get rid of the trauma, I guess it's worth a try._

_So, introductions: I'm Natasha Romanoff, of the SHIELD division of the Central Intelligence Agency. Fifteen years ago, I was Natalia Romanova, assassin for the Red Room facility, a secret service affiliated with the USSR government. My codename was Black Widow, and formally it still is._

_I think that's enough introduction._

_–Agent Romanoff._


	2. Humanity is for the privileged

_Dear Diary,_

_I've been told to start revisiting all the memories I can, without holding back, to expose myself to the trauma. Yeah, trauma – Clint's obsessed with the idea that I'm suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I'm not – PTSD is a product of a sudden event, normally something unnatural or unexpected. Either way, it's always as a result of a shift in regularity._

_The Red Room didn't give me PTSD. It couldn't have –- training and killing, that was part of an ordinary schedule. Every one of the assassins did it; some of them still do it. All of them have been fine, except for me. There was no change in life style, no trauma, because what we did wasn't wrong. The way we were treated was not wrong. It felt natural, normal. We were used to it, desensitized. What we did was work._

_But then there's the obvious counter evidence. I tick almost all the boxes. Avoidance is one. Veterans never speak about their wartime experiences. I never speak about the Red Room. Detachment. Pretending my life is only my work at SHIELD because I can't imagine a future. No husband or children, no friends, no university education. I don't want any of that, anyway. Then there's the increased vigilance. I put off sleeping, even though I need it to work effectively. Whenever I do sleep, it's with a gun between my mattress and my bed frame. That's why Barton decided to do this recuperation project of his. He found it, the one time I invited anyone to my apartment. Technically, I never even invited him. He came around because he was worried about me. Obviously, I slammed the door right in his face, but the bastard caught his foot on it and said, "Can I come in?" and made us coffee like it was his damn apartment._

_I guess he realized even before finding the gun that there's something wrong here. I guess he saw the lack of everything. Just the bare necessities, a kitchen unit and a chair for the sake of it. No artwork or cosmetics or coasters like good American homes are supposed to have. So, I guess it was our rooms in the RRI, tiny rooms with a bed and a sink. True warriors, they told us, don't need anything else._

_I assume they were trying to dehumanize us, get rid of any potential for a personality or interests, or I guess human morality. The perfect soldier isn't human. The perfect soldier is a killer and a survivor. That's it. No complications._

_That's what I used to tell myself._

_Then the sleaze bag went to "the bathroom", went into my bedroom and found the gun. He walked towards me holding it, and I thought it was all over, that he'd tell SHIELD and they'd fire me. I mean, who has any use for a human soldier?_

_But he promised me he wouldn't. We started SHIELD together, and we'll finish SHIELD together._

Fuckity-shite, I thought.

How are you meant to respond to something like that? My mom was a...what? A soldier, an agent? An assassin, obviously, at some stage. Then there was this Red Room – an assassination company? Which hired children. That didn't make sense, that's the stuff of science fiction novels, not real life. But then, SHIELD. What was SHIELD? I think I kind of knew. But it was so  _ridiculous._ It couldn't be true.

But what else would it be? A lie?

Or maybe just the mad ravings of a crazy woman, a story written by someone with too much of an imagination. 

Dad had always told me he met Mom at work. According to this story, that wouldn't be a lie. 

_We started SHIELD together._

But clearly they hadn't –- unless Dad was part of the Red Room as well. But that didn't make sense. The previous entry said Russia, and Dad wasn't Russian. He had school photos, a yearbook, and he told stories about that girl he loved when he was growing up in Seattle, whose name was Jessica. And Jessica was definitely real, because she waved to Dad that one time we visited Washington. What about Uncle Steve? He was  _definitely_ American. He was the epitome of American. But then Mom always seemed American, and I never knew until now.

_Are we all secretly Russians?_

_We started SHIELD together._

SHIELD. That could be a starting point, I thought. It seemed kind of familiar, actually. I put the diary down and pulled my laptop out of my schoolbag. Google, as I had always known, was my friend. 

**"Shield" may refer to: 1) form of protection (see "Shield" main article); 2) S.H.I.E.L.D: S **trategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division (semi-privatized special operations division of the Central Intelligence Agency; 3) Shield (surname) _  
_****

I clicked the most obvious answer. All it came up with was a logo, a silver-and-black of an eagle or something. It was pretty slick, but it also told me fuck all.  _Agents: classified._ Well, why even mention it, huh?  _Formed: 1939; 2014 (Following reformations made by a classified agent and unofficial manager)._

So it was still pretty much working in 2011, right? It wasn't impossible.

 My parents were agents. Special operations agents. Not office workers. They didn't file away reports about bigger, more dangerous people with shady glasses and have an office romance like I thought they did when I was little. They were agents.

I closed the laptop and slid it back into my school bag.

Oh my God.


	3. The Other Black Widow

 

_He told me to start backwards. I can see the logic in that. If I work backwards, I get steadily closer to the most traumatic of memories, while getting used to writing the less intense ones down. It’s not a terrible plan._

_So, for the sake of prudence, here it is: the most recent chapter of my life – Budapest._

_I only got back from Budapest five days ago, but the reason we were there is a much longer story. It actually relates to the Red Room, which must be why Clint linked them – my panic attack, my gun, and my Soviet training._

_On the 3rd of March, 2010, it was Barton’s birthday. Our friends at SHIELD thought they’d scrap regulation for the sake of a much-loved agent, and decided they’d throw him a surprise party. Honestly, I was excited for it. I don’t understand why that’s so surprising, since he gave me a second chance and saved me from a lifetime in prison and possibly worse, but somehow it is._

_Hill and I put our sweat and blood into it. We bought bottles of his favourite sort of champagne, prepared little canapés, found a place that would make the cake, and rented out a gallery space to host it in._

_To be candid, we were amazing at it. Two agents turned party-planners, and we were good. I stopped by at the venue at six-thirty, on my way home from a local investigation in Brooklyn. I was proud of it._

_Then there was getting him there. I suppose there was some more subtle, cunning way of convincing him to go to a gallery without suspecting anything, but that’s not my personal style (unless, of course, business requires it). So, I drove over to his, hid my car, broke in through the window like a good Black Widow and hid in the space beneath the couch and the wall. He walked in at seven thirty-five, and I shot him with a drugged arrow when his back was turned. He woke up on a chair in the middle of the gallery with forty-six agents around him half an hour later. After he woke up, he spotted me in the crowd and groaned ‘thanks for that sedative, Natasha.’_

_It could have been amazing night, but sadly it was cut short about eleven. Obviously, what stopped it was a bullet. It hit Hasseldorf in the elbow, when she was right next to me, and I remember how she turned to me, and screamed ‘Natasha, run!’ and tried to wave me away. She thought the bullet was meant for me._

_I knew it wasn’t. A bullet to the elbow was her signature move._

**_RING. RING. RING._ **

‘Fucking Jesu–’ I picked up the phone. ‘YES. YES. WHAT DO YOU WANT?’ Awkwardly enough, it was Jem.

‘Hey, um, did I, like, interrupt something?’

‘Oh shit, it’s you. I thought it was another elderly relative calling to say how _sorry_ they are.’

‘Gee, how terrible!’ Jem said. ‘Those kindly old people, wishing well on the grieving, remembering old friends…’

‘Shut up, Jem,’ I said, scrunching up my nose. ‘I’ve given myself enough moral lectures without you, thanks. Have you got me those lecture notes?’

‘Yes, but I was actually calling to check on you. You know, see how you’re doing. Cause you’re dad’s dead.’

‘Eh,’ I said. ‘I mean, I found out my parents were secret agents.’

‘I thought you knew they were in the CIA,’ Jem said.

‘Well, yeah, but not agents. I thought they were secretaries or something.’

‘Yeah, cause two young adults in peak physical condition with an attic full of secret stuff are totally likely to be secretaries, right?’ 

‘Well, now I feel stupid.’

‘How did you find out?’

‘Found a diary. My mom’s. In the attic.’

‘Shit, you went up to the attic?’

‘Well, yeah,’ I replied, wondering if I should feel guilt. ‘I mean, Dad’s _dead._ There’s…I mean, who else is gonna sort through all the crap that’s up there? I can’t leave it forever. I mean, I know what my sister would say. “It’s only been two days, Marina. Show a little sensitivity!”’

‘Mar, you don’t have a sister.’

‘Yeah, but I like pretending I have one for moral reinforcement,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I’m reading this diary. There’s crazy stuff in here, like sci-fi crazy.’

‘Yeah? Is there anything in there about SHIELD?’

My heart almost stopped. ‘How did you—’

‘Agent from there visited me yesterday,’ Jem said. ‘Weird guy, nice moustache. Said he wanted to talk to me about your dad.’

‘You? Why’d he want to talk to you? No offence.’

‘They wanted to talk to me so I could tell you, or like prepare you or something. I’m your emergency contact officially.’

‘You’re only three years older than me, dumbass. And isn’t Elly my emergency contact?’

‘Yeah, but she’s out of town.’

‘Is she? I talked to her yesterday.’

‘Well, apparently she’s out of town. I thought it was weird, too, I mean she has a funeral to attend. But I don’t know anything. So I called you up to tell ask if I can come around and drop the bomb about your dad being a CIA megadude or whatever. Also, I suggest you hide that diary and hide it good.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Cause after I text them to let them know I talked to you, they’re coming to destroy every official document your dad has lying around the house.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. Hide it.’ He hung up.

_AW, SHIT._

 

_I remember the first time she ever used it. We must have been about twelve, waiting outside the orphanage for dinner. Between three and seven, we weren’t allowed indoors. Instead, we had to spend time outside, studying independently. Studying independently was unusual, certainly an experimental decision, one of the last-ditch efforts by the organisation to keep the Red Room assassination squad strong. But that’s a completely different story._

_We were outside, and Yelena was playing with a gun. It must have been Monday – Mondays were gun days. I’d take them apart and reconstruct them, or fruit off the trees. Yelena was nothing like that. She was all gut and heart, terrible qualities in an assassin, but Yelena made it work. Yelena shot all around the place when she got a gun. She aimed anywhere but the windows – broken windows were rarely fixed. They said it was to teach us a lesson about vandalizing the gift of shelter that Mother Russia had given us. It seems more likely that they didn’t have enough money or government attention by that stage._

_Yelena looked at me. ‘Why’d you only aim at fruit? Look at this.’ She shot a bullet near one of the younger girls’ feet. She screamed in fury, and for a moment, Yelena looked scared. Then she laughed it off._

_‘Look,’ she said. ‘If she gets angry, I’ll kill her.’ I told her Miss Petrova would punish her if she did. She shrugged. ‘Then I’ll just disable her. It’ll hurt, and she’ll never get mad at me again.’_

_‘Your aim’s not good enough,’ I said. ‘You’ll just kill her.’ I must have meant it to provoke, because a girl like Yelena could only take a comment like that as a challenge. And she did._

_‘HEY, SLUT!’ she called at Nadia. Nadia turned around. Up until recently, she’d been cold as ice and stoic in front of everyone. Perhaps that was why Yelena chose her, perhaps she thought wrongly that making Nadia angry would not be so dangerous, and she would be able to back out of it if she wanted. Not a terrible idea in theory, but Nadia had recently started to lose her temper a lot quicker than she had before – a product of the change around her. Even the youngest girls understood that as the Soviet government was getting weaker, so was the importance of the Red Room and all its affiliations, including ourselves. We weren’t born assassins, we were spare cargo._

_Yelena shot Nadia in the elbow. She howled in pain. Unbelievably, she didn’t lose her life or even her arm. It was extreme luck for Yelena._

_Next time, she wasn’t so lucky. She shot Yulia the following week in a similar way, and the girl died. We were used to deaths by all means, so it barely affected us. People rarely spoke to Yulia. People rarely spoke at all._

_Yelena was summoned to the office. When she returned, it wasn’t to her old room, but to the one I shared with just one other girl. They called it the Holy of Holies. It was a room for the elite––the Black Widow forces. Yelena woke me up, bloody and bruised but with a smile on her face. ‘They’re upgrading me to this room. I get to live here now.’ I shrugged her off and rolled over._

_‘Go to sleep.’_

_The penalty was high – no lunch indefinitely and only stale bread, for wasting Red Room resources. But the prize meant a lot to somebody as ambitious as Yelena. It was frowned upon to have signature blows – soldiers, as I said, can not be human. But Yelena adopted a bullet to the elbow as her own, and she was good enough at her job that nobody really cared._

_So I knew, that moment in the gallery, who had shot that bullet. Coincidence is extremely rare in this field of work. There was clamor and terror everywhere, but I left it all behind me. I went home._

_That was where she was waiting for me. Yelena. The other Black Widow. She was drinking coffee on my chair, and flicking through some magazine she’d probably stolen on her way there._

_I just got off the phone with Fury. I have a new task. It’s to do with Tony Stark, as in the all-American oligarch. I don’t know why we’re suspicious of him, yet, I have a briefing this afternoon. Personally, seeing as he’s the son of one of the SHIELD co-founders, I wouldn’t really stress about it. Plus, I read his file when I was bored at work once. I doubt there’s much to find._

_And anyway, those kinds of missions are all sorts of boring. I put on a dress and flaunt my cleavage and the information’s in my hand a second later. Where’s the excitement in that?_

_Romanoff._

 

**Author's Note:**

> please comment :)


End file.
